THE LAST KEEPER-Chapter 63: FAMILIAR ACQUAINTANCE
"I will also take the first watch." Sagiri said, starting to head to the entrance.
"No you won’t." Kaka intervened. "You sleep now so that you are awake when kiuga wakes up."
It was past midnight and the rain had finally eased to a drizzle. They boys had just taken the cold medicine sagiri made and they were all warming against the fire after sagiri told them there was no one deeper in the cave or outside the cave. now that sagiri had stopped to listen. His body was actually more worn out and since he had merged with his power earlier on to save kiuga. He was worn out and cold. Perhaps Kaka has seen that and he just did not want the only guy who knew about healing to die before morning. sagiri however had other plans in mind. He was not planning to sleep at all. He wanted to go back to see if he was able to go through the snake’s last memories. His body however was starting to feel warm on the outside and cold on the inside, as if something was happening inside of him.
He did not want to argue with kaka so he just nodded and sat much closer to the the fire. he chose to fall into conscious slumber. It was the most effective sleep. He sat in a meditative position and closed his eyes. Everyone was familiar with meditating since they did it every morning so to everyone apart from N’varu it could just seem like he was meditating.
He let himself shut out everything around him to the corner of his mind and instead decided to push his senses far beyond the cave. As he fell deeper he tried to push his senses as far as possible. Far into the woods. It was easy at first and he was starting to sink deeper into the song of the forest, but suddenly as if something slapped him he jolted awake with a gasp. to him it might have been a few minutes but an hour had passed and kiuga Maita banga, Ulekai and Zoliath were lying peacefully around the fire. he gasped loudly making the four guarding the cave mouth to turn to him.
"I told you something is wrong with your body." N’varus’ voice was the first to reach his ears. He was also the closest to him as he stood watch. It was as if he had been protecting him from internal threats of protecting everyone from any external threat.
"I think so too now. It is as if my body has a broken part and until I figure it out I won’t be able to." Sagiri said feeling the cold inside his body grow even more. The fire was still going and everyone by the fire was dry now but he had not felt any warmer on the inside and his outside body was burning even more.
"Just rest. I know what you think of doing and I won’t allow it." N’varu said, staring Sagiri in the eyes, scanning sagiri as if he could read thoughts. The two had been sticking together for long anyway and they were starting to understand each other without saying anything. Sagiri was trying to send his senses so far out and taste if he could touch the memory of the snake without touching it. After Kaka said the bami clan did not kill without honour he had not been able to stop thinking about who could have been strong enough to deliver such damage in such a long time. of course he hadn’t been able to and he had fared even badly because his body was breaking down or in. he had wanted to go after N’varu slept but that was an impossibility now. he could tell that N’varu was not going to sleep till morning. he was going to watch him even more fiercely now.
’I will find another way’
Sagiri thought again, cursing his body for choosing this moment to fail him. He lay close to the fire and before he could think further he was out like a light. He did not even wake up for the second watch. When he finally jolted awake everyone was already awake.
"You are finally awake." kiuga was sitting beside him looking much better. It seemed the pain medicine had worked wonders. rusha usually gave it to patients with broken bones and it had some healing aspects to it. The dose he made might have been a bit too strong but he could not know how deep the guy was injured. Even his pale eyes were now sparkling. "What did you give me, Sagiri the blind? I have never slept so well in my entire life. you have to make it for me sometime." kiuga continued his enthusiasm back, stronger than ever. All the other guys were scattered around the cave sharpening their daggers and talking about whatever. Kaka and N’varu were the only ones still standing guard and sagiri could tell the guy had not slept a moment. It was the early hours of the morning but it was still dark outside. The heavy darkness before daylight.
"It is meant for sick people." Sagiri answered remembering how many times rush had refused to give him sleep inducing pills. She had insisted that they were for sick people and his nightmares and weird dreams were not an illness. He had stolen a few when he was younger but then when her mother had bought it a patient who was in so much pain and she could not find the pills to put him to sleep he had regretted it. Rusha did not scold him as always. She never did but he had scolded himself and left the medicine for those who needed them the most.
"I am still in pain." kiuga faked a wail holding on to his foot.
"One more doze then." sagiri said thinking even if the guy was faking his wails he needed one more Dosage. Two Dosages were what rusha gave the least injured.
"If you give him another doze now and he falls asleep. I will throw you both in a gravescales nest," Kaka said, turning around swiftly. He of course knew the gravescale was dead but kiuga didn’t. Him, N’varu and Sagiri did not tell the others what had happened and it was a mutual silence agreement which they did not even have to discuss. If the other guys knew that someone had killed the gravescale in such a short amount of time and it was most gory possible then the team could have fallen into disarray and with kiuga injured it could have been fatal. even so the three planned to tell captain salka or fuwuka once they exercise was complete.
"You are such a mean king of bami, I almost died you know. have some pity." Kiuga faked a pitiful face but to sagiri it was not fake. He could actually feel fear rolling off of Kiuga in waves. it was valid since the guy had almost died and since the guy was the glue of the team sagiri felt alarmed. he might have been acting enthusiastic but he was shaken. Who couldn’t anyway? it was a wonder the guy was not curled into a ball in a corner shivering.
"When I was nine I went hunting for squirrels myself and almost got eaten by a park of wolves." the words tumbled out of sagiri’s mouth. "I still have the bite mark of their alpha on my inner thigh. if my step father hadn’t come looking for me in time I could have surely died. I still remember the pain." He finished and kiuga turned to him. Understanding flashed on his face before he plastered the smile back.
"You see only Sagiri, the blind understand me." kiuga said, pulling sagiri into his armpit and ruffling his hair. Even so, sagiri could feel the fear in him going down. Of course his words could not just heal him but relating pain to someone can make it easier to carry. Sagiri was sure the guy was going to have nightmares for a while but for now he just needed him calm enough to use his head to come up with another strategy. When he was done mishandling him he finally let him go and sagiri pulled his hoody down covering his hair again.
"I would not have let it eat you," Sagiri said again more to himself and he meant it. kiuga stopped laughing and stared at him for longer this time. When he finally spoke his voice was steady.
"We should get moving, we have been dormant long enough." He started standing to his feet.
"We have been dormant because we were babysitting you," Kaka shot back but Kiuga ignored him.
"We covered an almost two hours distance from the gate. we need to get back as soon as possible. But we must be aware that now is the time most teams are going to strike, because I know I could do so, we avoid many teams as much as possible with the help of Sagiri which will be almost impossible since we are all headed in the same direction. So we move with Sagiri at the front this time in an arrow formation." He said and the sounds of daggers being sheathed echoed in the cave. "Everyone looked tired but energetic now that Kiuga was back in charge. He proceeded to give everyone instruction before they all lined up behind Sagiri.
"Move out!" He said and sagiri unraveled his hooked ropes. He stood at the entrance for a long moment stretching his senses to perceive any movement before he took off into the darkness. kiuga putting him in the lead when he was the slowest was another strategy in itself. After an hour of all being airborne and swinging from tree to tree sagiri finally perceived something. It seems he was the only one who had led his team into enemy territory and no one had been bold enough to go there. He stopped immediately and the queue behind him came to a stop too.
"Four on our way." he announced. "They are not moving," he continued. He could perceive the presence of four people two hundred feet away but they were not moving.
"keep moving. four is not a match for us. even so attack only if necessary." Kiuga instructed and sagiri kept moving in the direction of the four. They kept getting closer and closer yet the four did not move and he finally understood why when they broke into the clearing ahead. Dawn had finally started breaking through the horizon and they did not need googles to see the four. only that they were six now. He only perceived the other two right when they were about to break into the clearing. The four were three boys with a girl all from Konate and they were standing staring at the point where sagiri had just broken through. He almost faltered but he lowered himself to the ground peacefully. the other two who he didn’t perceive further off were sitting at the rare back of the four. It was a girl sitting in a log and a boy standing beside him.
It might have been blurry but he remembered the scene perfectly. He had seen it before. Back when he was in his village. The girl perched on the tree seemed to not have grown a day. Her weapon that was coiled around her arms was engraved with a totem of a desert falcon known to the Nfari tribe. Standing behind her as if to guard her was the wide eyed boy looking to have just turned sixteen but with a body of an eleven year old. Just like four years ago when they had come for him in the Wuzi village. His tattoo was marked by a jawbone pattern around the mouth that gave it all away. He was from the leading clan Haku of the Shoku tribe of the north. He had grown a few inches taller but the duo was still as weird to him as ever. The only thing that had changed was that they were now wearing Konate uniforms and the four Konate students were standing guard in front of them willingly.
Sagiri’s team came to a stop behind him, franking him on all sides staring at the scene in front of them.
"I thought you said four." Kaka said, staring down the six with hostility. Their flasks remained unpopped and they were dry even after the heavy downfall.
"You again." sagiri seethed, his mouth pulled in a snarl. The echo inside him had branded them his enemies and right now it had done the same.
"You know them." N’varu asked, staring at the six.
"Not the four. the two behind them." he said menacingly. He barely recognized his voice.
"the freaks?" kiuga asked, staring at the wide eyed weird looking kids who had not blinked once ever since they broke into the clearing.
